That Other Thing
by daisiesinajar
Summary: She didn't tell Lance about the pregnancy, and now, she could never tell him about his son. Set after S02E09 "Ye Who Enter Here". A possible interpretation of what "that other thing" that Mack mentioned to Bobbi could mean.


**That Other Thing**

Past

She couldn't believe it. Sure, it would explain a lot- the nausea, the dizziness, the constant tiredness- all for someone whonever used to have such problems and hardly ever fell sick. She ran her thumb over the double blue lines again. What would Lance say? Unbidden, an image of him tenderly cradling an infant with a head of blond hair came to mind, cooing at the child and rocking him slowly. The image filled her with love and warmth right down to her fingertips, and suddenly she was excited and couldn't wait to tell him; couldn't wait to start their new family together.

* * *

She was still picturing all the possible –mostly positive- reactions Lance would have when she told him, when she heard the front door slam shut. She had thought of a hundred ways to tell him, but in that moment, she whirled out of the kitchen, leaving the pasta sauce she had made from scratch (because he loved it when she cooked), and met him with a wide smile and shining eyes. She had never felt like this before, like she would burst with joy and excitement and love.

All that melted away the moment she saw the look on his face. His eyes were filled with anger and hurt, and she knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth.

"You lied to me again Bobbi!" He thrust a crumbled sheaf of papers at her and she took it numbly, hardly seeing what it was through the tears that threatened to fall, not really taking in what it meant. It was intel about an old mission, months ago, that she didn't tell him about because she didn't want the knowledge to put him in danger—the same reason she had kept all the other previous missions from him. The situation seemed so surreal all of a sudden, like Lance was yelling at her from a distance and she was watching it unfold through a foggy window.

Lance ran his hands through his buzz cut frustratedly, and paced in front of her. "Every time! Every single time you promise you'll be honest, I believe you, even though I know it's absolutely STUPID to do so and that it's just! Another! Lie!"

He stopped dead in front of her. "Everything you say, everything you've ever said to me, it was to manipulate me into believing you and trusting you, wasn't it?" he spat. "You keep asking me to trust you Bob, but you keep pulling this kind of shit—you… you just keep me around because you know I'll do anything for you, don't you!" The hurt in his eyes told her how much pain he was in, how hurt he was that she didn't trust him—he could never quite hide the emotions in his eyes with her.

She made a sound, tried to think of an explanation, but her mind was drawing a blank.

"Save it," he said bitterly, "Anything you say will just be something to manipulate me with."

Bobbi just stared back at him, her heart breaking. And then she ran into the bathroom to throw up.

No, she thought, she couldn't tell him about the baby like this. She couldn't bear it if he thought it was a lie to manipulate him, or if he thought she had purposely gotten pregnant to manipulate him, or if she had slept with someone else, or—she emptied her pain into the porcelain bowl as her stomach heaved and heaved.

* * *

They rolled onto their backs on the tangled sheets, gasping and panting as if they had just run a marathon. Her body was still reeling from the last orgasm—no one had ever been as good at Lance. He lay his arm across her stomach, lips pressed against the sensitive spot at her neck. She laced her fingers with his, and slowly, casually, brought it to rest over where the baby was. He stroked her belly with his thumb in small, lazy circles, while kissing and nipping at her neck, and she gasped, filled with a sudden longing and love for him, for their baby. She pulled him closer to her, their bodies flush against each other.

"Can't get enough of me huh Bob?" Lance smirked lazily.

She crushed her lips to his in response.

The next time they were trying to catch their breaths, all the quarrels, all the hurts, slowly filtered back into both their minds. They had done it again- just ignored all their issues and had crazy monkey sex. That's how it had always been with them, and they both knew it was unhealthy. But it was intoxicating.

"Bob—Barbara." She stilled, her heart stopping. The warmth that accompanied every orgasm was replaced by a sinking feeling that crept over her with cold fingers.

"I—we can't do this anymore." Lance swallowed. "It's not healthy, we can't—we can't keep doing this. I can't—what if we have a child someday, huh?

Bobbi's breath caught in her throat. Did he know..?

"We can't do this, imagine how unhealthy a child growing up and seeing us fight and argue all the time would be—at least we don't have a child yet. It's a good thing we don't. Bob… Bob, we can't."

He got up, pressed a final, desperate kiss to her lips, and left.

She lay there, stunned and motionless, tears flowing silently down her cheeks. Beneath her hand, she felt a little flutter- the first time she had ever felt the baby move.

* * *

She got on with her life. She took a long leave of absence from SHIELD, citing personal reasons. It wasn't a lie- it just wasn't the truth: people would think she needed time to heal from the divorce, which was the truth, but really she didn't want to put her baby—their baby—in harm's way. Her belly rounded steadily into a large, firm bump. She went about things as usual, in the day, but it was the nights- it was the nights that hurt the most. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. She wasn't supposed to go through this alone, to go for doctor's appointments alone, to decorate the baby's nursery alone. She thought he would have been so excited to do all these things with her, to feel the baby roll around like he did so often nowadays, but she thought back to their last conversation and knew that it was just wishful thinking. These realisations, frequent as they were, gutted her every time.

She received a message from the director one day, requesting her assistance with an op. She turned him down immediately, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. It would be a simple covert op, he said, no active engagement, just an exchange of information with another party and analysis of their response. Simple, straightforward, nothing she couldn't handle.

But Coulson didn't know about her condition, didn't know that she was a week shy of her due date.

"All we need is for an inconspicuous exchange of information, Agent Morse. The more inconspicuous and normal you look, the better. I assure you, there will be no need for fists or guns."

It was that last sentence that convinced her. Plus, how much less inconspicuous could a heavily pregnant woman be? But just in case, she asked for a partner. If Coulson was surprised, he didn't mention it. He assigned Mack and hung up the phone.

* * *

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. _Murphy's law_, she thought, as she braced herself for the next punch from the man in the suit and swung low and came swinging back up to sock him one in the head. Her partner was nowhere to be found, and the exchange of information had been complicated- as ops always are, she sighed to herself mentally, grabbing the man with both hands and tossing him against the chaise in the hotel suite. It was much more difficult fighting whilst so pregnant- the weight made her ungainly, and she had to twist away to take any blows on her back instead of on her abdomen- but she _was_ one of the best. It didn't take very long (although longer than she normally would have) before she had all three suckers unconscious on the ground.

Bobbi gave a heavy sigh as she brushed herself off. Another tightening of her abdomen forced the air out of her lungs—another contraction. She had been having them since the moment she turned up for the meet, probably a result of all the adrenaline, but this one was so much stronger—before she could catch her breath, she found herself flying to the ground and instinctively rolled on her side to protect her belly.

_My baby, _she thought, before another kick landed in her back. She tried to get up and got to her knees before another contraction hit and she felt a warmth spreading down her legs. Her water had broken. _My baby. _Panic filled her mind and she swung wildly at her attacker, getting in a blow before he kneed her in the belly and shoved her to the ground. The pain was excruciating. She stumbled and crawled backward, and between each spasm of pain she realised he had produced a gun. _My baby._

Her back was against the side of a sofa, her arms wrapped around her belly as it squeezed and contracted until she couldn't breathe and saw stars beneath her eyelids. She heard a loud bang, and wondered if the contractions hurt so badly that she couldn't even feel a gunshot—but then a man came running over to her.

"Bobbi! Bobbi, what's happening, were you shot? Are you hurt?" Bobbi!"

"Mack, about time!" she snarled, and gasped as another contraction hit. She grabbed Mack's hand and grit her teeth against the scream that threatened to rip from her throat. "I'm… I'm in l… Ah… I'm in labour Mack!"

* * *

Present Day

"Are you gonna let him in on that other thing?" Mack asked.

Bobbi thought of her little boy, with his father's brown eyes and brown hair, and his smile of delight every time he saw her. She recalled the conversation she had had with Lance, and all the quarrels they had ever had. She couldn't imagine his fury when -if-he found out about his child—their child. If he was angry and hurt that she had kept missions from him back then...

"No," she answered Mack pointedly. "And I'd like to keep it that way."


End file.
